


Back to Nature

by Gefionne



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy works in the mall, M/M, POV Steve, Star Court Jobs Verse, Steve's minor gay panic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:48:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21772096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gefionne/pseuds/Gefionne
Summary: When Billy Hargrove gets a job at the fitness center in the mall, he becomes a regular customer at Scoops Ahoy. Steve might be able to break his losing streak and earn aYou Rockif he's willing to think a little outside the box to catch a date.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 16
Kudos: 299





	Back to Nature

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Назад к природе](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22421497) by [nadiasna7](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nadiasna7/pseuds/nadiasna7)

There’s a distinct frosty, chemical smell to the coolers when they’re empty—when all the ice cream is still in the back freezer before the mall opens and the front display cases are clean. It wakes Steve up in a way that a flurry of customers doesn’t; the air isn’t fresh, but it’s crisp with cold and tinged with cleaning solution. His head is clearer after he ducks out from under the lid, having breathed in the strangeness. He doesn’t like to think about it, but maybe it reminds him of the uncanny scent of the tunnels in the Upside Down. It’s not exactly similar, but it puts him on edge all the same.

It’s July, the summer after graduation, and Steve is killing time and pretending he’s going to college in the fall. Scoops Ahoy is a way to make a little extra money and keep himself busy. He doesn’t want to stay in his parents’ empty house all day waiting for a change that’s not going to happen in September. He’s still going to be in Hawkins, even after everyone else goes away.

He hasn’t told Robin, the girl who works most of his shifts with him, that none of his half-assed college applications had come back with acceptances; he doesn’t need another tally mark on the whiteboard: _ You Suck_. He’d probably get five or more for admitting it. 

He’d probably deserve it, too.

Right now, in the late afternoon on an unremarkable Tuesday, Steve leans against the counter looking at his reflection in the cooler’s glass. He’s got on the stupid sailor hat and his uniform. He should have _ You Suck _stamped on his forehead; it would save Robin the trouble of marking down every time a lady customer brushed him off.

The stream of regular customers has slowed to a trickle in the past half hour, and Steve is bored beyond comprehension. He just happens to glance up and out at the main floor of the mall when he sees a (unfortunately) familiar face: Billy Hargrove, wearing too-tight pants, Chuck Taylors, and a shirt with the sleeves cut off, is making his way by the fountain. Steve frowns by habit alone. Hargrove was just another instrument in Steve’s downfall, taking over his place on the basketball team and in the halls of Hawkins High. Steve doesn’t like to repeat what others say about Billy, but they aren’t always wrong that he is maybe one step above trash.

From what Steve heard, he is working as a lifeguard at the pool, but if Steve squints, he can see the logo on the front of Billy’s abused t-shirt: Bench and Burn, the exercise place across from and just to the left of Scoops. There was no way he was just going to wear that around. It isn’t his style at all.

“Hey,” Steve calls to Robin in the back, “I’m going on my break. Be back in ten.” If she says anything in reply, he doesn’t hear it, instead pulling the hat off of his head and leaving it by the cash register on his way out of the store.

He doesn’t want to follow too closely, but he has eyes on Billy as he goes into Bench and Burn and disappears behind the main counter where the staff wait to sign people in. When he comes out again, the wear-worn gym bag he carried in is gone and he has a sweatband over his brow and around his teased hair. Steve can’t help but snort derisively at the thought of Billy Hargrove teaching an aerobics class, but Billy doesn’t go that direction. He enters the weight room of the fitness center. For a moment, Steve expects him to just start working out, but he goes to a gathered group of three middle-aged men and starts talking to them.

_ Oh_, Steve thinks. He’s a trainer; this has to be his second job.

Half-hidden behind a fake plant, Steve watches Billy start to show the men how to use various weights. Steve recognizes a bench press and bicep curls, but after that he’s lost. Billy seems fairly good at teaching, though Steve can’t imagine it; he’s such an asshole ninety-nine percent of the time. How an innocuous place like Bench and Burn could have hired him is beyond Steve’s imagination. Not that he has a particularly impressive one to begin with.

Steve watches for a minute or two more before ducking out from behind the plant and hurrying to the bathroom. In three more minutes—two before the ten he told Robin—he’s back at Scoops and ready to make more sundaes.

“I saw you lurking out by the gym,” Robin says from beside him, her usual sardonic expression firmly in place. “Are you creeping on the housewives now?”

“No,” Steve grumbles. “I saw someone I know.”

Robin doesn’t miss a beat. “Hargrove.” Steve cuts his eyes toward her, and she laughs. “I’ve seen him in here before. Just started this weekend, though.”

Steve had been off this weekend for a short trip with his parents to Purdue. They had tried to pull some strings to get him in; it hadn’t worked.

“Huh,” says Steve, noncommittal. “Well, he’d better stay out of here. He’s a dick.”

“Yeah,” Robin says, “but if he does, at least something will happen here for a change. He took your crown. I’d love to see how he treats you now.”

Steve’s brow knits. Robin’s thrown worse at him before, but that somehow that one stings. He’s serious, though; Billy Hargrove had better not show his face in Scoops.

* * *

Weeks creep by at Star Court, though the weekends tend to be busier. Around triple scoops in waffle cones and pecan-topped chocolate in a cup, Steve’s been keeping his eye out for Billy Hargrove.

There are days when Billy is already in Bench and Burn before Steve opens Scoops for the day. He seems to work out there around his training schedule, and once or twice Steve has found himself hiding behind the planter—having mint chocolate chip for breakfast because his parents are gone again and he forgot to pick up oatmeal or cereal—and surreptitiously watching Billy do deadlifts in profile. So _ maybe _Steve had been killing time at the library and flipped through a book on weight lifting.

Other days, Steve is already elbow deep in vanilla caramel swirl when Billy makes his appearance. He always has the shit-eating, self-satisfied grin on his face when he walks into the fitness center. The young women who teach aerobics stop to bat their eyelashes at him. Steve can’t help but feel the jealousy roiling in the pit of his stomach; how does Billy always manage to get the girls to look at him when Steve can’t get a second glance? Billy seems to flirt back, but Steve’s never seen him leave with one of the girls. Maybe he doesn’t mix business with pleasure.

Robin constantly asks Steve why he tries to pick up girls during work—“It’s _ not _sexy here, Harrington.”—and Steve doesn’t have a great reply. He does have free time outside of work to spend in town, but he can’t go to a bar and he sure as hell isn’t going to the arcade like Dustin would. Not that Dustin doesn’t already have that girlfriend of his—but that’s beside the point. Scoops is the best place to see girls Steve doesn’t know, even if the uniform doesn’t do him any favors. He tries to ignore the various college sweatshirts he sees; those girls want a smart guy, and that’s not him.

For a Thursday afternoon, there’s a fair amount of traffic through the shop, and Steve’s been scooping solidly for the past hour. Robin is on toppings duty, ladling fudge over sundaes and squirting whipped cream as artfully as she can manage. _ Two _cherries on top supposedly puts Scoops ahead of any of their competition in indulgence. Steve never eats the cherries. He saw Suzie Spurlman tie the stem in a knot with her tongue once, but he didn’t stop to think about what else she could do with that tongue; it’s an old trick, and he isn’t impressed anymore.

Steve is just cashing a couple of little kids and their mother out when he sees Billy Hargrove walking on the other side of the main mall, just outside of Scoops. Steve drops the mother’s change.

“Sorry,” he says, gathering up the coins sheepishly. The mother gives him a haughty lift of her nose, collects the change, and ushers her daughters out. Steve quickly flips the finger, knowing she won’t see it—but Billy does.

Even between passing shoppers, Hargrove stops dead, turning to face Steve and staring him down. Steve quickly lowers his hand. He should be able to shrug off inadvertently flipping Billy Hargrove off, but instead he’s embarrassed to have drawn the attention to himself. Billy never stops in his comings and goings from Bench and Burn; he never sees Steve. 

Until now.

His beaten-up gym bag swings against his back as he stalks into Scoops with a thundercloud expression. There aren’t any other customers at the counter to stop him, but he draws a few gazes of customers at the tables in his progress. Steve watches him approach and then reach the counter, affecting nonchalance with one hip cocked and his left hand on the countertop.

“Harrington,” he says, dragging out the first syllable. “It’s you in here after all, huh? I didn’t recognize you in the sailor suit.” He tips his head to the side and gives Steve a cursory once-over. “It works for you.”

Steve can feel a flush in his face, and he hopes it comes off as the anger he wants to pretend it is. But it’s been a long time since someone, _ anyone_, has looked at him with interest that he can’t help but appreciate it. Coming from Billy Hargrove, though, it should have been summarily rejected. Steve isn’t ready to acknowledge how it isn’t.

“What do you want, Hargrove?” Steve says tersely. “Ice cream can’t be a part of your Bench and Burn diet.”

One of Billy’s blond eyebrows lifts. The corner of his mouth curves up, too, as if it’s connected to the eyebrow with a string. “Since when do you know that I train there? You been stalking me, Harrington?”

“No,” Steve hurries to say. He thinks he hears a stifled laugh from the back room. “I just see you. You know, walking by...and stuff.”

“Funny,” says Billy. “I’ve never noticed you. But now that I know, I might just have to come visit a little more often.” Peering into the cooler, he points to the pistachio ice cream. “I’ll have two scoops of that.”

By habit, Steve asks, “Sugar cone or waffle cone?” He wants to wince at the too-cheerful, customer service tone.

Billy seems more than pleased with it, though. He replies, “Which one do you like better?”

Steve’s never been asked that before. It’s almost flirtatious the way Billy does it, and Steve fumbles to say something back. Instead, he grabs a napkin and picks up a waffle cone from the stack by the register. He holds it up without speaking.

“Okay,” Billy says. “Fill ‘er up.”

The practice comes in handy as Steve deftly scoops pistachio and presses it into the cone. A snack sounds pretty good right now, if he’s being honest, but he can’t do it on the clock. Cone in hand, he goes back to the register and holds it out for Billy.

“Dollar twelve,” he says.

Billy doesn’t immediately go for his wallet. He eyes the ice cream for a moment and then wraps his lips around the top scoop, tasting it. Some of the green is still on his upper lip even after he pulls away, Steve notices, but then he licks it away.

“Pretty damn good,” Billy says. “Dollar ten, you said?”

“Twelve.”

Billy shoves the cone back into Steve’s hand. “Hold this for a second.” He reaches into his gym bag and produces some crumpled bills and an equally crumpled half-empty pack of cigarettes. The pack he shoves back inside, but he manages to count out two dollars and hand them over to Steve.

Steve takes them gingerly, as if they’re dirty, and types the total into the register. It pops open with a ding for him to make change. He only realizes when he’s counted the coins out that he’s still holding Billy’s ice cream. He almost curses, but extends his arm and says, “Take this.”

Billy does, wrapping long fingers around Steve’s to lift the cone from his hand. A shudder goes down Steve’s spine. “See you around, Harrington,” Billy says as he adjusts the fall of his bag on his shoulder. He turns around and walks back out into the chaos of the mall.

The sliding screen to the back room opens and Robin sticks her head out. She produces the whiteboard, tapping the _ You Suck _side with the cap of the marker. “I would put something down, but I don’t think you screwed up. If you’d’ve turned on the charm, you might have had him.”

Steve’s mouth drops open. “You’re kidding, right?” he says after a second.

“Not at all,” she says. “He was checking you out; he sounded into it. You’ve been staring at him for a week. Want to break your losing streak, _ Steve_? Ask Billy Hargrove out. I bet he won’t turn you down.”

Indignant, Steve shoves her back and slides the door shut. No way in hell would he do that, even as joke. He’s not gay, and it’s _ Billy Hargrove_. No way, no how.

But as he leans against the counter, he thinks of where Billy’s hand rested and how tight his workout pants were.

* * *

Steve figured Billy was kidding when he threatened to come into Scoops more often, but he does. On his way out of Bench and Burn every time he has a shift, he comes in and orders something totally different from the time before. Most of Steve’s regulars have only little changes to their same cones or bowls—nuts instead of gummy bears, caramel instead of fudge—but Billy has never once gotten the same thing.

He’s sitting in the back room with a white bread and bologna sandwich he made for himself for lunch one Friday afternoon when he hears Billy’s familiar Californian lilt from the shop floor. He stops with the half-eaten sandwich halfway to his mouth and listens to Robin talking to him.

“You paint those pants on every day?” she asks, but she’s mocking him, not coming on to him.

“Yeah,” he replies. “I’ve got a nice brush and everything.”

Steve can imagine him saying something along the lines of, “You like it?” to someone else, but not to Robin; he knows already he doesn’t have that kind of effect on her. Strangely, he doesn’t seem to mind.

“So,” Robin continues, “what do you want today?”

The reply has nothing to do with ice cream: “Where’s Harrington?”

Steve drops his sandwich to the table, straining his ears to hear every word, the exact intonation.

“Not here right now,” Robin says. “You’ve got me or no dessert.”

There’s a pause, and Steve is on the edge of his seat, but then Billy says, “Well, I’ll skip the dessert today.”

“Aw,” Robin says, affecting disappointment. “We can’t have that. Let me just pop into the back and—”

Steve should be ashamed with how fast he gets to his feet, but he’s done it before he can think too much about it. He grabs his uniform hat and puts it on, glad he doesn’t need to arrange his hair artfully to make it look decent; it doesn’t, no matter what he does. He tries to take it slow, keep it collected, as he rounds the corner back behind the counter. Both Billy and Robin turn to him as he appears, and both of them give him a smile: Robin’s is smug, Billy’s is predatory.

“Hey, Harrington,” he says. He’s wearing a red terrycloth sweatband, stray locks of hair sticking up and over it along his forehead. It’s air conditioned in the mall, but he’s still in a sleeveless shirt. Unfortunately, Robin was right to ask about painted-on pants: they’re tighter even than Steve has seen them before.

Steve goes to the register and asks, “What do you want?” as gruffly as he can.

Billy isn’t offended, doesn’t back down. He pulls his lower lip between his teeth and leans onto the counter. “What’s your favorite flavor?”

Robin is leaning back against the wall behind the counter, her arms crossed as she watches Steve and Billy like they’re the best entertainment since _ Knight Rider_. Steve tries his best to ignore her.

“Uh,” he fumbles, “vanilla.”

“Oh, my _ God_,” Robin scoffs.

Steve wants to turn around and tell her to fuck off, but he keeps his eyes on Billy. Somehow he thinks if he lets Billy out of his sight, he’ll wreak havoc on the rest of the customers as if he’s a wild animal.

“Is it French vanilla you have,” Billy asks, unperturbed, “or the regular kind?”

“Just the regular kind,” Steve replies.

Billy touches his chin with the middle knuckles of two forefingers, brushing just under his mouth with his thumb. “I’ll try it. You put anything on it?”

Steve shakes his head. “Plain. In a waffle cone.”

“Then make me one of those,” says Billy. There’s a beat and then he adds, “Pretty please.”

Two simple words that from anyone else would have Steve laughing—but instead his stomach drops and he gets a little lightheaded. It’s only by weeks of practice that he can grab a cone and open the case to scoop out the vanilla without tripping over his own feet.

A couple of middle school girls come in and Robin goes to serve them, leaving Billy to step aside and come closer to where Steve is scooping. The vanilla is emptier than Steve was hoping, so he has to scrape hard at the sides of the bucket to get enough to fill Billy’s cone. It takes strength, actually, and Steve is aware it makes his meager biceps and forearms flex. He sometimes puts on a show for the girls he thinks he might have a shot with, playing it up, but now he feels self-conscious with Billy’s eyes on him.

“You know, Harrington,” Billy says, “I figured you’d like chocolate, maybe with sprinkles.”

Steve looks up for a second, brow knit, but then goes back to scooping. “Why? Sprinkles taste like wax.” Billy drums his fingertips against the glass of the case. Steve says, “Don’t do that. You’ll leave smears all over it.”

Billy deliberately puts his whole hand on it, and Steve glares. “You’re a real dick, Hargrove,” he snaps.

“And you’re such a sweetheart?” Billy counters.

Steve slams the door of the case down too hard, stalking back to the register. Robin has already cashed the girls out and they’ve gone. She’s punched the cost of Billy’s cone in, too, but he doesn’t have to be told the total; he’s somehow been concealing two crisp dollar bills in his left hand the whole time. He hands them to Steve in exchange for the ice cream.

“I’m not to you, anyway,” Steve says, finally.

“Not what?” asks Billy.

“A sweetheart. I’m not your friend, and I don’t want to be.”

Billy is holding the cone in his right hand. He taps the tip jar instead of taking his change. Steve grudgingly drops the coins into it with a few metallic pings.

“Who said I want to be your friend, Harrington?” Billy says. There’s no bite to the question; it’s smooth as the case’s glass.

“Nobody,” Steve says. He shakes his head, annoyed at the entire exchange. He wanted the upper hand and somehow Billy managed to keep it—again. He puts on his best Scoops smile and says, “Anything else I can get you?”

Billy sucks his teeth, letting his tongue show between his lips. He says, “No thanks. See you next time.” And then he goes.

Steve falls back against the railing just in front of the back window and rubs his palm over his face. He wants to curse, but can’t find the words.

“He definitely doesn’t want to be your friend,” Robin says after a minute passes.

“Then why the fuck is he always in here?” Steve demands, suddenly angry. “I don’t want to see him.”

“No,” says Robin, “but he wants to see _ you_.”

Steve indignantly snorts.

Robin comes over to lean beside him. “You’re an idiot.”

“Yeah?” says Steve. “That’s news to no one.”

“No, I mean, you don’t see. Billy doesn’t want to be your friend because he wants to be more.”

Steve’s head snaps up and he stares open-mouthed at her. “_What_?”

Robin rolls her eyes. “Idiot. He comes in here to see you, insists you scoop his ice cream, and then looks at you like he wants to eat you up. You can’t seriously not have noticed.”

“No way,” says Steve. “He’s got a hundred girls chasing him. Even people’s _ moms _are making eyes at him. He isn’t”—he swallows— “into...” He can’t make himself say it.

Flicking his temple, Robin says, “There are guys who do both, you know.”

Steve’s stomach knots up this time. “Not him,” he says.

“And not you?” Robin asks.

_ I don’t know_, is the first thing that comes into Steve’s head, but he shoves it away as fast as it came, and replies, “And not me.”

* * *

Steve doesn’t spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about what Robin said or about Billy Hargrove in general over the next few days that he has off of work, but when he returns for his Friday shift, he realizes he’s thirty minutes early. He has no intention of clocking in before he’s supposed to, so he starts walking through the main thoroughfare, his hands in the pockets of stupid uniform.

Despite avoiding Scoops, he still goes past it and toward Bench and Burn. He doesn’t meditate deeply on why he stops behind the usual plant (for camouflage) and peers into the weight room at the fitness center. It’s fairly empty at nine-thirty in the morning, but somehow Billy is there. He’s working out by himself—no clients or other gym rats to be seen. There’s a sheen of sweat on him from cheeks to arms and before Steve can stop himself, he wonders what that might taste like if he gave the side of Billy’s neck a flick of his tongue.

“Jesus Christ,” Steve says, too loud. A mother with a little boy shoots him a disapproving frown. He waves in apology.

When he turns back to the weight room, Billy is gone. He doesn’t let the disappointment simmer for long; he resigns himself to it and goes into Scoops to start work.

He’s already got all the ice cream flavors out when Robin comes in, but thankfully she doesn’t ask any questions, just goes into the back and leaves him to man the register. Steve’s leaning against the counter with his back to the front of the store some ten minutes later when the bell rings. He nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Harrington,” says Billy in that languid way he’s taken to pronouncing it.

Steve snaps to attention, his eyes focusing on Billy standing there looking over the register at him. There’s a towel around his neck and the usual gym bag over his shoulder.

“Uh, yeah?” Steve says dumbly.

Billy surveys him. “You were watching me.”

Steve doesn’t have to ask what he means. “No.” The denial falls flat, and Steve gets a chuckle for his trouble.

“Did you like what you saw?” Billy asks.

Steve is clamming up, knowing whatever he says isn’t going to be anything good.

Billy inches closer, fingers spread wide where his hands rest on the counter. “Come on, Harrington. I’ve seen you out there before. You like watching me lift.”

“Fuck off, man,” Steve snaps. It’s the only thing he can manage.

Billy repeats himself, with emphasis: “Do you _ like _what you see?”

There’s no way out, no more lying without making it painfully obvious that it’s not the truth. Steve doesn’t want to admit it, doesn’t want to give Billy this victory, but he’s tired. He’s flushed from chest to face, but he meets Billy gaze and then nods shallowly.

A grin that is all teeth spreads across Billy’s face. He says, “Meet me after your shift by the loading docks.” He doesn’t give Steve time to reply, simply turning and leaving Scoops.

Steve has to brace himself against the counter, inches from where Billy’s hands had been. Behind him, he hears the sliding door open from the back room. He’s ready for Robin’s quip, but she says nothing. She sets the whiteboard out where Steve can see it and makes a single tally mark: _ You Rock. _Then she shuts the door again.

* * *

Shipments come in late during the night, leaving the loading docks deserted and bathed in the sallow light from two bulbs above the awning when Steve arrives after the mall’s ten o’clock closing time. He’s been jittery all day. He dropped at least two full ice cream cones on the floor over the course of his shift, leaving Robin to fill news ones and give him disapproving looks as she took over cashing customers out. For all her rooting for him and whatever was coming with Billy, she didn’t seem pleased that he was so distracted. He’d just ignored her until they’d lowered the front gate of the shop.

He’s standing now at the edge of the loading dock, looking down onto the oil-stained and cigarette butt-scattered concrete below, wondering if he’s making the biggest mistake of his life. Billy could be playing him. Maybe he was going to bring friends to watch Steve humiliate himself. Steve Harrington, loser extraordinaire, trying to meet up with Billy Hargrove for...well, _ something_.

When he hears footsteps approaching, he wants to shrink back into the shadows, just melt away and wait for Billy to leave. Steve wonders how long he would stay before he figured Steve wasn’t coming and head out. Steve doesn’t get the chance to find out, though, because as soon as Billy comes into view, he zeroes in on Steve and makes right for him.

Steve watches him take the stairs up to the dock two at a time, and he stops just in front of Steve. Strangely, he’s not in his Bench and Burn workout gear. He’s wearing his familiar denim jacket, jeans, and battered knock-off Doc Martins, as if he went home and changed before this. A gold earring dangles from his left lobe.

“Harrington,” he says, low and definitely suggestive.

Steve has to swallow his nervous excitement to keep his tone even. “Hey.”

They stand a pace apart for a few seconds, and in the light breeze that comes up, Steve can get a whiff of Billy’s cheap cologne. He smells different than any girl Steve’s been with; it sends a thrill through him. It’s a waft of danger, and the unknown.

Finally, Billy takes a step toward Steve, forcing Steve to move back toward the wall by the loading dock’s door. He doesn’t quite hit it.

“I’ve been waiting for this all summer, Harrington,” Billy says.

Steve says, “For what?”

Billy presses him into the wall, planting one hand beside his head like Steve’s seen the bad boys do to sweet girls in movies. He shouldn’t be as into it as he is.

“To get you alone,” Billy tells him. “Out of the mall.”

“Why?” Steve’s voice sounds small and too high, uncharacteristic of the King Steve he once was. He used to be so smooth, and now he’s fumbling to keep it together.

Billy leans in, his nose scant inches from Steve’s. His breath is minty. “You really need to ask that?” he says.

Steve’s face is burning and there are stirrings below his belt that he doesn’t want to address or admit. “I don’t know what you want,” he says.

A spearmint huff. “_ You_, Harrington.”

Steve is completely tongue-tied and on the verge of panicking. At least that’s what it feels like; but it could be something else, too.

Billy takes the edge of the collar of Steve’s uniform and rubs it between his thumb and forefinger. “You look good in this,” he says.

“You’re kidding, right?” Steve asks, weakly laughing.

Billy lifts one shoulder and lets it fall again. “Like I said, it works for you.” He drops Steve’s collar and tiptoes his fingers up along the side of Steve’s neck. Steve knows he can feel the rabbit-quick pumping of his pulse. “You ready for this, Harrington?” Billy says.

Steve can’t force words out, but when he looks down at Billy’s mouth, Billy knows he’s game. Steve has a second or two to breathe, but then Billy ducks his head and lands a kiss where his fingertips just were. Steve’s knees tremble, and he reaches blindly out to latch onto the side of Billy’s jacket.

“I knew you wanted it,” Billy murmurs against Steve’s skin. “More?”

“Y-Yes,” Steve stammers.

Billy it gives it to him: kissing his jaw, his cheek, and then his mouth. Steve has to clutch at him to keep himself upright as Billy’s tongue presses against his lips. A low hum and the slickness has Steve opening for him. Billy sweeps his tongue inside and Steve groans.

Steve’s done a lot of kissing in his life, and he likes to think he’s good at it, but Billy’s even better. He knows exactly how to tilt his head to get the right angle to make Steve’s heart jump; he knows when to push his tongue deep and when to close his mouth for a few lighter pecks. It’s intense one moment and then playful the next. Steve tries his best to keep up, but mostly he follows Billy’s lead.

It’s actually nice to give up control for once. He’s maintained it in ways he didn’t realize since what happened in the Upside Down; he hasn’t let himself loose in months. It’s barely fathomable that it’s Billy Hargrove who finally has him letting go, but he’s not going to think about that—not when Billy has one hand at the nape of his neck and the other at his right hip, his thumb inching under the hem of Steve’s shirt.

When, at last, Billy moves back, Steve is actively shaking. The business below his belt has made itself more apparent and he realizes that Billy’s standing close enough to feel it.  
“Oh,” Steve says, embarrassment flooding his awareness. “Shit.”

Billy is still composed, but in response, he presses slightly in to make it known that he’s not totally unaffected either. Steve makes a humiliatingly weak sound in his throat.

“That’s enough for now,” Billy says, “or you’ll lose it.” He puts more distance between them, forcing Steve to let go of his jacket. He continues, “We’ll take this back to your place sometime. Not yet, but soon. That sound good, Harrington?”

Steve nods just slightly, earning himself a grin.

“See you,” Billy says, and then he’s bounding back down the stairs and disappearing into the darkness. Steve hears the roar of his Camaro and the tires as he peels out of the parking lot.

It takes a while for Steve to get himself under control enough to even stand away from the wall that’s supporting him. He just spent fifteen minutes making out with Billy Hargrove, and he loved it. He doesn’t regret it one bit. In fact, he thinks to himself, he earned that tally on the whiteboard after all.


End file.
